rvaded by a cold atmosphere, which signified that she had not
dined there that day.

By this time Melbury's mood had a little mollified. Everything here
was so pacific, so unaggressive in its repose, that he was no longer
incited to provoke a collision with Fitzpiers or with anybody. The
comparative stateliness of the apartments influenced him to an emotion,
rather than to a belief, that where all was outwardly so good and
proper there could not be quite that delinquency within which he had
suspected. It occurred to him, too, that even if his suspicion were
justified, his abrupt, if not unwarrantable, entry into the house might
end in confounding its inhabitant at the expense of his daughter's
dignity and his own. Any ill result would be pretty sure to hit Grace
hardest in the long-run. He would, after all, adopt the more rational
course, and plead with Fitzpiers privately, as he had pleaded with Mrs.
Charmond.

He accordingly retreated as silently as he had come. Passing the door
of the drawing-room anew, he fancied that he heard a noise within which
was not the crackling of the fire. Melbury gently reopened the door to
a distance of a few inches, and saw at the opposite window two figures
in the act of stepping out--a man and a woman--in whom he recognized
the lady of the house and his son-in-law. In a moment they had
disappeared amid the gloom of the lawn.

He returned into the hall, and let himself out by the carriage-entrance
door, coming round to the lawn front in time to see the two figures
parting at the railing which divided the precincts of the house from
the open park. Mrs. Charmond turned to hasten back immediately that
Fitzpiers had left her side, and he was speedily absorbed into the
duskiness of the trees.

Melbury waited till Mrs. Charmond had re-entered the drawing-room, and
then followed after Fitzpiers, thinking that he would allow the latter
to mount and ride ahead a little way before overtaking him and giving
him a piece of his mind. His son-in-law might possibly see the second
horse near his own; but that would do him no harm, and might prepare
him for what he was to expect.

The event, however, was different from the plan. On plunging into the
thick shade of the clump of oaks, he could not perceive his horse
Blossom anywhere; but feeling his way carefully along, he by-and-by
discerned Fitzpiers's mare Darling still standing as before under the
adjoining tree. For a moment Melbury